THE BARRIER OF COST 



Harry A. Curtis 



The main thesis presented in Dr. Nolan's paper is that research and 

 technology in the past fifty years have profoundly affected the situa- 

 tion we face with respect to natural resources and have even changed 

 our concepts as to the conservation of these resources. Dr. Nolan de- 

 scribes only briefly, and sometimes rather vaguely, the actual research 

 and technology involved in bringing about the effects he discusses. It 

 is the impact of research and technology that he talks about. 



Dr. Nolan gets under way with a discussion of the Governors' Con- 

 ference called by President Roosevelt in 1908. He does not ridicule 

 the persons involved in the conference, but he belittles their naive 

 concept of conservation, their unwarranted concern over the possible 

 exhaustion of natural resources, and their lack of faith that science 

 and technology would soon solve all the problems that worried them. 

 I dissent from these views regarding the conference. In the first place 

 the leaders of the conference did not voice the layman's common con- 

 fusion of conservation with hoarding. In fact, as Dr. Nolan agrees, 



HARRY A. CURTIS before his recent retirement was a director of the 

 Tennessee Valley Authority where he previously had served as Chief Chemical 

 Engineer. He has been Professor of Chemical Engineering at Yale University 

 and Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern University, and Dean of the Col- 

 lege of Engineering of the University of Missouri. In the early 1930's he was 

 Director of Research for the Vacuum Oil Company. He was born in Sedalia, 

 Colorado, in 1884, did his undergraduate work at the University of Colorado, 

 and earned his doctorate at the University of Wisconsin. 



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